


TIME ONLY SHARPENS ITS SWORD TO SLAY THAT WHICH MAKES YOUR HEART BEAT

by snghw



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: ((i cried a bit about this and then decided to write it and now im crying a bit more about this), Afterlife, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Death, Devil! Wooyoung, Fairy Tale Style, Fluff, Gods, Heavy Angst, Human! San, Jung Wooyoung-centric, Like, M/M, Sad Hrs Open, Sad and Sweet, [john mulaney voice] ive been sad for so long ive forgotten what the sun feels like, and uhhhhh, some of the
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:02:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27203557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snghw/pseuds/snghw
Summary: “Who are you?” the boy who smiles like cherries asks.“The Devil has many names.”“Ah,” the boy says, because he’s young and human and just brittle enough to be strong. “So you’re the one who’s been eating our sheep?”
Relationships: Choi San/Jung Wooyoung
Comments: 18
Kudos: 25





	TIME ONLY SHARPENS ITS SWORD TO SLAY THAT WHICH MAKES YOUR HEART BEAT

The Devil is standing above the world, atop the highest mountain, barefooted. There is no need for shoes, once you throw yourself over the edge.

There’s a battle going on, down where sea meets lands, but he can’t be bothered to feel the warmth of the flames, can’t be bothered to think about the end, because just a lifetime of heartbeats from him, legs thrown over the cliff, is a beginning. A long time ago, too long, the Devil decided his heart was unnecessary, putrid and dusty and often misused, so he threw it into the Dragon King’s mouth and listened to the old bastard hum in pleasure. But now, there is a silhouette, and it has wings large enough to smother the world or the Devil’s lungs, and he’s so close he can hear his breath, and the Devil remembers a shivering thing that once rested inside his chest.

 _Oh,_ the Devil thinks, _death is crueler than I could have ever hoped to be in life._

He walks towards him, because there is no looking into the eyes of before, here. He walks towards him. His hair is black and clean and moving with the wind. He walks towards him, because it hurts as much as it soothes. His hands are pressed into the rocks of the mountain, his legs are dangling, his chest is rising and is falling and is as warm as it was then. He walks towards him, because there are only two names that have been of consequence in the history of time, and the Devil aches to feel them run through his veins. 

  
  
  
  


_“Who are you?” the boy who smiles like cherries asks._

_“The Devil has many names.”_

_“Ah,” the boy says, because he’s young and human and just brittle enough to be strong. “So you’re the one who’s been eating our sheep?”_

_And perhaps it’s his eyes, or the way he rests his fists against his narrow hips, or the way he doesn’t shake and pray. Whatever it is, whatever makes the Devil’s heart race with excitement, it doesn’t matter._

_Throughout the forest, the fae hide and the bucks run, because the Devil laughed with truth and pride, and then whispered his name to the boy in the mountain._

_“Wooyoung,” he says, and smiles, and shakes his head._

_“My name is San,” the other boy says, and extends a hand. The Devil looks at it. What an odd thing to do. “You’re supposed to shake it,” San supplies._

_“Ah,” he says. “I leave you puny humans for only a few decades and you forget to bow.”_

_San’s laughter. The shiver of his chest. San’s eyes. His hands, clutching onto his stomach. San’s feet, placed firmly into the ground, facing the Devil while his mind knows him by name._

  
  
  
  


This beginning has silver eyes and black wings that turn at one point, commanding the world on all sides. This beginning looks cold and barren and enamoured with the blood spilled and the swords drawn and the perpetual sorrowful anger of humanity, unlike back then, when he was kind and warm and smiled with light in his eyes and lacked any shadows and looked at every dying plant like he’ll mourn them for eternity. This beginning is looking into War’s eyes and falling in love with her wrath.

This beginning has silver eyes and black wings and the Devil is an emperor, but the Devil is not, and there is very little to do when you look at a lover and see a ghost.

He understands, however, because he has broken and brought souls to dust and then nothing and then thrown them into chained cages, and he’s seen these eyes, how they look and swallow instead of seeing. Black holes. Touch and you’ll become nothing. Touch and you’ll never escape.

 _What a terrible ending for a terrible creature,_ the Devil thinks. 

So, because he understands just as much as he yearns, he unfolds his own wings, and turns his bleeding eyes to the carnage below.

“I am hiding,” this beginning says. “Are you?”

 _You have been for a long time,_ he wants to say. _Has it been very lonely?_ he wants to say. _It hurts to see you when you’ve forgotten my name._

“No,” he says instead. “I’ve come here to die.”

  
  
  
  


_“Wooyoung-ah!” comes San’s giggling voice, broken by hiccups of mirth and infinite joy. “Wooyoung-ah, where are you hiding?”_

_He doesn’t answer, of course, even though the laughter and the love and the sky tell him to run to San and hold his hand and let San break him to millions of dust particles. He can’t, however, because if he does, San will jut his bottom lip at him, widen his eyes and complain about Wooyoung always letting him win._

_“You can’t catch me when I’m invisible,” he always tells him._

_“I can! Don’t underestimate my unending desire to see you speechless!” is San’s answer, always, without hesitation, because big words sound funny, and Wooyoung always speaks like he’s reciting subtitles of historical Korean dramas translated into other languages._

_So, Wooyoung walks behind him, hidden in the realm between here and there, and waits for San to find his perpetual hiding spot. If the demons saw what he does in his free time, playing hide-n-seek with a human, he’d never hear the end of it._

_San stops abruptly. Wooyoung does not. San screams, and turns, and starts cheering._

_“Fuck yes! I found you! You owe me food for three weeks now!”_

_“I would give you everything, for eternity. I would give you myself and my kingdom,” he says, still hidden in-between. “I have already given you my heart, and I will leave it in your hands from now until the day this world is nothing.”_

_He shows himself, copies San’s pout, and says:_

_“You’ll bleed me dry at this point, Sannie.”_

  
  
  
  


This beginning nods, and does not look at him, because he is not his. It hurts too much to think about, so the Devil pretends the end and death and everything happening below and here is unimportant.

“Why did you die?”

“I have not, yet,” he answers.

“Why will you die?”

He’s looking now, right at him, at his trembling being. The Devil stares ahead, and tries, pushing his chin and his body and his hands to focus. _He is not yours,_ he reminds himself. _He is not yours and he does not remember your name, nor the meaning of your being here._

“I broke myself,” he says “And now I have had them make me anew.”

“Why?”

He did not expect the laughter to bubble out of him, nor the pain of his lungs expanding. _Oh, it’s happening, then,_ he realizes. This makes him laugh harder and louder and longer. The other stares into him, as if reading a terribly complicated novel.

  
  
  
  


_“You don’t need to come here,” Wooyoung says, “I understand you are important to them, and that you have duties in this world.”_

_San doesn’t answer. Instead, he asks:_

_“Do you know why I gave you my name?”_

_Wooyoung shakes his head. San chuckles, and it’s so very harsh and unhappy, it’s so very raw. Wooyoung’s heart breaks and shivers at the cold._

_“I was looking for something,” San says. “When I came here. My name’s what it is because of this place. Grandmother said I was made for the mountains, for the world. To be strong and unyielding.”_

_Wooyoung frowns. San is nothing if not strong. San is nothing if not compassionate. San is not unyielding, however much he resembles the midsummer skies._

_“But I never wished for that,” he says. “So I came here to die.”_

  
  
  
  


“Have we met before?”

  
  
  
  


_“You will never understand, I think,” Wooyoung says, voice full of warmth and love and gold, “how much your love has set me free.”_

_“I don’t,” San whispers into his chest. “I’m pretty sure I’ll never really understand. But I’ll try to.”_

_“I am grateful for you.”_

_San laugh, loud and pretty and like rain and forest grounds._

_“I made the Devil love,” San says. “And the Devil made me live.”_

  
  
  
  


“No,” he answers, and he breaks, and the blood grows thicker on his cheeks and in his veins. “We have never met, before today.”

“Oh.”

A beat, a scream, the fires rising.

“Why are you crying?”

  
  
  
  


_“You should be happy, Woo-yah.”_

_“How could I, when you won’t be here come morning?”_

_“Well, love,” San chuckles. The weakness of his throat travels down Wooyoung’s spine like venom through critical veins. “I promised you love, and that will not end with my body.”_

_“San,” Wooyoung sobs into his shirt, his weak shoulder, hand still clutching the wound on his chest. Seconds. That’s all they have left._

_“Promise me,” San says. “Promise to be happy.”_

  
  
  
  


**THE DEVIL HAS ONLY LIED TWICE: ONCE AS HE LOVED, ONCE AS HE ENDED.**

_“I wish we were endless, love.”_

**Author's Note:**

> ive decided to live on a mountain and be sad forever because i dont know how feelings work when i dont write about them
> 
> i wrote this piece a long long long time ago and reread it tonight after thinking about it for a few weeks. it used to be like a poetic kinda narrative thing but then i said ,,,,, huh what about woosan tho so this was born
> 
> anyway i am v happy with how this turned out but!!!!! any and all critique and commentary is MORE than welcome (unintelligible screaming is accepted and appreciated as well)
> 
> thank you for your time!!!! ly!!!!!!
> 
> if you have questions or wanna talk to me for the purpose of [insert kpop boys and sadficbitch feelings]: [twitter](https://mobile.twitter.com/snghwatz) & [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.qa/snghw). 


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